You have no idea what your talking about. Or rather you probably do and are being wilfully ignorant of a long and difficult period for southern Irish unionists.

Unionists in the south, the ones who did not flee, faced violence and summary execution based on the whims of local Irish republicans.

While it is true support was given for the notion of the Free State, notably this included dominion status and an upper house whose composition was designed to offer the minority a say in the future of the country. This changed before it's abolition in 1936 and outside of trinity and Donegal cavan Monaghan no unionist representation could happen due to dispersed population. Unionists ran as independents in these constituencies post 22 which tells it's own story re ongoing intimidation and domination of the minority community in the Republic. Gaelicisation as government policy, adherence to te nemere, more items seen as unpalatable to unionist life.

Some may well have given up and joined in with nominally nationalist parties. Most simply retreated from all politics that wasn't local. Hardly an endorsement of ideologies other than unionism, which by now was not practical for most hoping to live in a state with hostile policies to it's only neighbour.

There was the odd sticking of the head above the parapet. In the 50s Presbyterians in Cavan Monaghan complained to the government about the over concentration on Gaelic in the school curriculum. There were very few representatives of protestants nationally, so political leadership often simply defaulted to the churches. Doubly true today.

By 1949 it was clear that southern Protestants weren't in any agony over living in a state which was actively pushing itself away from Britain.

Different time, different people.

What planet are you living on? Those protestants had no choice in the matter. The small representation they did have was done away with and so shallow nationalists like yourself now feel comfortable spouting any old uninformed bollocks such as the above safe in the knowledge these people haven't had an effective political voice in years.

And different time, different people?

Those people very much still exist and if you offered them the choice to rejoin the UK it would be done in a heartbeat. No more forced 'praising' the hero cowards of 1916 in their schools, no more populist cuts to said schools based largely on the bigoted stereotype of affluent big house prods.

Fuck me, the shite that nats come out with on a regular basis. Up there with the west link being built to cut off the falls from the rest of Belfast and that famous time the Royal Navy fired a gun salute to Michael Collins.

Assuming that's rhetorical it's safe to assume border security didn't build up overnight once the first shot was fired.

Either way, neither date precludes what I'm saying to you - you weren't alive to experience what a normal pre-troubles border was like, so why would your experience contradict Trimble's assertion pre 72?

“An awful lot of nonsense was said about that. We operated from nineteen-twenty-something until 1972 with different tariffs North and South without causing the collapse of the political process.

Every major road had an army checkpoint complete with sand-bags and look-out tower, where a soldier would point a gun in your face and make you get out of the car to check the boot. Back-roads were blocked by concrete barriers. Bridges were destroyed.